Tomato Music is a concert piece to be played apart from the Tomato
Quintet sound art installation. It can be performed as a purely
loudspeaker work in stereo or up to 15 channels.

The music is a sonification at high speed of the ripening of
tomatoes grown in my backyard. Picked early and displayed in an
installation at the Machine Project Gallery (LA) they produced a
week of music before being cooked for the exhibition's closing
reception. Artist Greg Niemeyer monitored environmental conditions
including carbon dioxide output of the ripening process, right up
to the point where they hit the sauce pot. The first movement uses
four days worth of the data scanning it 600 times faster. The
musical instrument is a software simulation of the ancient Greek
hydraulis, or hydraulic organ. Both the simulation and the use of
tomato data to play it belong to a fantasy in the spirit of the
gallery exhibition. While neither is properly scientific, the two
are combined to draw the listener into "a world where if you've
ever sat in a forest or a garden and sensed the plants breathing,
you'll appreciate how the exhibit heightens and celebrates this
sensation." [Susan LaTempa, LA Times]